Lack of product engagement, commoditization and increasing competition makes retention in the hosting industry a challenge. This is especially true for small businesses, as they often fail to use their business software to their full potential due to lack of time, money, or skills. So how do you, as a digital service provider, adjust your offering to retain your small business customers? Foundational digital products such as web presence and websites offer more than a new revenue stream. These products add value and help you differentiate your core hosting and domain offerings - value reduces churn and opens the door for an organic upsell path for other services.

When registering a new domain, it is very likely that business owners are also looking for other digital presence products. After all - what is the value of a good domain name without a website, email address or traffic? It’s about meeting the SMB where they are, something that the website platforms like Wix, Squarespace and Wordpress are doing by including domains in their product offering.

Nowadays, we see more products making their way into the hosting tech stack too. From unlimited email addresses and drag-and-drop website builders, to e-commerce add-ons, and SSL certificates to generate online trust. However, most of these products are self serviced, something that SMBs often struggle with.

So how can you adjust your offering to provide what your SMB customers actually need?

A great website isn’t a product—it’s a service.
Today website builders are a lot more user friendly than they were five or 10 years ago. Everyone with the need can probably make a decent website. But the question is: will they? And it varies greatly depending on the business owner. While the newly graduated and digitally-savvy entrepreneur may easily put together an impressive website; the local hairdresser starting her own web shop (as a complement to her brick-and-mortar) might struggle to find the time to get set up between appointments.

Building a website requires time and focus, and it’s unrealistic to expect that a small business owner (alongside daily operations and lack of digital experience) manage to build an effective website. And that is why so many purchased domains are not attached to live websites.

So while offering a DIY website builder may be preferable for some business owners, there is also a large segment of small business owners looking for a service-based offering that allows them to engage with a digital advisor that will guide them through the website creation process at an affordable price point, or in some cases even fully outsource the website creation to their digital service provider. So while your DIY offering may help attract new SMB customers, it will ultimately be your service-based offering on top of the website that helps you reduce churn, retain customers and increase satisfaction.

A website in itself is a sticky offering, but by offering added services that helps your SMB clients more effectively get their business online, you will ultimately drive more value and reduce the likelihood of churn. What’s more, it lays the foundation for future opportunities to drive more business by helping SMBs optimize their digital presence to drive traffic and conversions, as well as up- and cross-sell other complementary digital presence offers.